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Top Ten Most Reliable Ways to Develop Alcoholism
(note: these are not guaranteed to work, but they have for many people)
- Start drinking before the age of 15. 40% of these people can be diagnosed late in life with alcohol dependence!
- At your own pace, increase your tolerance by getting drunk on a regular basis (eventually a high enough tolerance will trigger alcoholism).
- Surround yourself with people who make the same drinking choices that you do.
- Continue making high risk drinking choices despite negative consequences that have resulted.
- Ignore friends and family if they express concern about your drinking
- If you have alcoholism in your family, get drunk frequently and build up your tolerance (see #2).
- Drink or get drunk to cope with stressful life events (divorce, death of loved one, etc.) and feelings of anger or sadness.
- Learn to do certain things best in the presence of alcohol (i.e., dance, socialize, have fun, study) so that you become more dependent on alcohol to function normally.
- Make sure most of your life revolves around alcohol: getting it, drinking it, recovering from its effects, and trying to keep yourself out of trouble resulting from drinking.
- Refuse to see alcohol for what it really is: AN ADDICTIVE AND POTENTIALLY LETHAL DRUG!!!
Some facts about alcoholism…
- It is a disease, just like heart disease and cancer, with a typical course of progression and recognizable symptoms
- It cannot be cured, but it can be treated and arrested
- It is present in about 10% of the population
- Alcoholism has a very strong genetic component and can be passed down to children and grandchildren
- Someone with alcoholism can never again be a “social drinker”, and does not have any internal controls for regulating their drinking
- A person with alcoholism, if it is left untreated, will eventually end up in one of three places (perhaps all three): jail or prison, an institution, or the grave
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